Mountkirk Games: Professional Cloud Architect Exam Answer - SEO Friendly

Mountkirk Games Case Study for PCA Exam

Question

Mountkirk Games makes online, session-based, multiplayer games for mobile platforms.

They build all of their games using some server-side integration.

Historically, they have used cloud providers to lease physical servers.

Due to the unexpected popularity of some of their games, they have had problems scaling their global audience, application servers, MySQL databases, and analytics tools.

Their current model is to write game statistics to files and send them through an ETL tool that loads them into a centralized MySQL database for reporting.

Solution Concept - Mountkirk Games is building a new game, which they expect to be very popular.

They plan to deploy the game's backend on Google Compute Engine so they can capture streaming metrics, run intensive analytics, and take advantage of its autoscaling server environment and integrate with a managed NoSQL database.

Business Requirements -Increase to a global footprintImprove uptime " downtime is loss of playersIncrease efficiency of the cloud resources we useReduce latency to all customers Technical Requirements - Requirements for Game Backend PlatformDynamically scale up or down based on game activityConnect to a transactional database service to manage user profiles and game stateStore game activity in a timeseries database service for future analysisAs the system scales, ensure that data is not lost due to processing backlogsRun hardened Linux distro Requirements for Game Analytics PlatformDynamically scale up or down based on game activityProcess incoming data on the fly directly from the game serversProcess data that arrives late because of slow mobile networksAllow queries to access at least 10 TB of historical dataProcess files that are regularly uploaded by users' mobile devices Executive Statement -

Answers

Explanations

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The solution concept for Mountkirk Games is to deploy the game's backend on Google Compute Engine, which can capture streaming metrics, run intensive analytics, and take advantage of its autoscaling server environment and integrate with a managed NoSQL database. To meet the business requirements of increasing global footprint, improving uptime, reducing latency, and increasing efficiency of cloud resources, as well as the technical requirements for the game backend and analytics platforms, the best option is Cloud Spanner.

Cloud Spanner is a fully managed relational database that is highly scalable, globally distributed, and highly available. It is designed to meet the needs of large-scale, mission-critical applications that require low latency and high performance. Cloud Spanner provides strong consistency, transactional semantics, and automatic scaling, making it an ideal choice for the Mountkirk Games backend platform.

Cloud Spanner can dynamically scale up or down based on game activity, ensuring that the system can handle sudden spikes in user activity. It can also connect to a transactional database service to manage user profiles and game state, which is a critical requirement for online, session-based, multiplayer games. Additionally, Cloud Spanner can store game activity in a time-series database service for future analysis, allowing Mountkirk Games to gain valuable insights into player behavior and game performance.

As the system scales, Cloud Spanner ensures that data is not lost due to processing backlogs. It runs on a hardened Linux distro, ensuring the security and stability of the platform. Cloud Spanner is also designed to be highly available, with built-in redundancy and automatic failover, which will help improve uptime for Mountkirk Games.

For the game analytics platform, the best option is BigQuery. BigQuery is a fully managed, highly scalable, and cost-effective data warehouse that can handle petabyte-scale datasets. It can dynamically scale up or down based on game activity, allowing Mountkirk Games to process incoming data on the fly directly from the game servers. BigQuery can also process data that arrives late because of slow mobile networks, allowing Mountkirk Games to gain valuable insights into player behavior even in areas with poor connectivity.

BigQuery can allow queries to access at least 10 TB of historical data, which will be critical for analyzing game performance and identifying trends over time. It can also process files that are regularly uploaded by users' mobile devices, which is a common practice in online gaming.

In conclusion, the best options for Mountkirk Games to meet their business and technical requirements are Cloud Spanner for the game backend platform and BigQuery for the game analytics platform. Together, these two solutions provide a highly scalable, globally distributed, and highly available infrastructure that can handle the demands of online, session-based, multiplayer games.